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reporter writes "Since 2006, Apple has regularly audited its manufacturing partners to ensure that they conform to Apple's Supplier Code of Conduct (ASCC), which essentially codifies Western ethical standards with regard to the environment, labor, business conduct, etc. Core violations of ASCC 'include abuse, underage employment, involuntary labor, falsification of audit materials, threats to worker safety, intimidation or retaliation against workers in the audit and serious threats to the environment. Apple said it requires facilities it has found to have a core violation to address the situation immediately and institute a system that insures compliance. Additionally, the facility is placed on probation and later re-audited.' Apple checks 102 facilities, most of which are located in Asia, and these facilities employ 133,000 workers. The most recent audit of Apple's partners revealed 17 violations of ASCC. The violations include hiring workers who were as young as 15 years of age, incorrectly disposing of hazardous waste, and falsifying records. In Apple's recently released Supplier Responsibility 2010 Progress Report (PDF), they condemned the violations and threatened to terminate their business with facilities that did not change their ways."

It's amazing that the mainstream public can be this economically retarded, but it isn't very surprising given that their education is controlled by the government - the very entity that benefits from these sorts of regulations.

Individuals, including children, choose to work in "sweatshops" because that is better than other alternatives available to them: backbreaking subsistence agriculture, crime, prostitution, etc. Simply outlawing free market in labor will not make schools, hospitals, and personal wealt

The problem is that the countries that still have it as a problem also have a government-business relationship that is "too friendly". Those factories could willfully ignore law and kill their critics.

Just because it may be their only practical choice does not invalidate that it is a bad one. Rewarding those businesses for pursuing that government policy is not going to make it any better.

Free market economies are able to go from child labor and sweatshops to banks

Examples ?

South Korea is a notable example of this, because it's right next to North Korea, which shares the same culture and history, up to 1950. Then the country was split in two and each half adopted a different economic orientation. Look at the results today.

Except South Korea doesn't have a history of using child labor. What they did do is work extremely hard to build a strong export-led industry combined with high import duties that ensured domestic production would remain high. Oh and most of those industries were given state funding (as the banks were all nationalized), and were not grown in a laissez faire free market economy.Prior to Japanese colonization, Korea would have used children to help in the farms (much like on American farms), but not in facto

South Korea has historically retarded the entry of younger peoples into the workforce via an emphasis on compulsory education.

If anything, South Korea is would be one of the better examples for why widespread child labor is not a necessary stage for rapid industrial development. In 1955, South Korea had a per capita GDP lower than that of most African nations. 55 years later, it is among the largest economies in the world and one that is knowledge based, at that.

Hong Kong. Taiwan. Most of what we now consider to be the first world.

It sucks that children have to work, but that's not the worst option in underdeveloped countries. My grandfather had to start working at around 13, and that was in the worker's paradise that was the Soviet Union.

There is something lacking in that train of thought. I think what is lacking is foresight and long-term thinking.

We know why children labor -- because the rich aren't willing to pay enough for a man to feed his family under his own pay. So what are the alternatives? Of course -- have more children who can them in turn, earn money. The problem with this? The children, and by extension, the workforce becomes very uneducated... even more than in places where the government controls education. Spending one's learning years at work means bad things for the future of a workforce and for a community. The whole point of child labor laws is to allow children to become educated and to decide for themselves what they will do with their lives when they are old enough.

Without this regulation against the free market, the market would drive its labor force to death and into animal-like stupidity.

Further, as you seem to believe in the free market, let's look at it another way -- by pulling workers out of the labor pool, we are making the labor resource more scarce making the resource more valuable and therefore raising the rates of pay for those who remain at work. So child labor laws might also serve to improve the amount of money that comes into individual families.

The very idea of nations "growing up" more quickly using the broken backs of 10 year olds is simply too repugnant to discuss. Even if this were viewed as a grand sacrifice, we know that only very few would benefit from this growth while the masses would remain in suffering.

this isn't "child labor", it's teenage labor. if a 15 year old can earn some money, let him. in our culture we have 15 year old babies that can't do a thing for themselves, high school is doing nothing for them.

No one is arguing against a teenager getting a part time job in suburban U.S.A. What is being argued is what is wrong with child labor as in "this is what you will do for the rest of your life because you won't be able to go to school because this will stunt your mental growth" kind of thing.

No one is arguing against a teenager getting a part time job in suburban U.S.A. What is being argued is what is wrong with child labor as in "this is what you will do for the rest of your life because you won't be able to go to school because this will stunt your mental growth" kind of thing.

As someone who grew up in a "3rd-world country" I have news for you. Most people are finished with school by age 12. A 15-year-old is considered an adult and often is married and has at least one kid by then. We treat teen-agers like children in the US and Canada and they fulfill that expectation spectacularly - in fact, you aren't a "real" adult until 21 and then insurance companies rape you and you can't rent a car, etc., until you are 25. We put up with and even encourage infantile behavior by our teens and young-adults. And then we impose our beliefs on the rest of the world.

If Apple wants to make it's world-wide policy match our expectations, fine. They talk about these companies hiring workers "as young as 15". Well, that 15-year-old, who very possibly is married with a family and obviously wanted the job (I didn't hear that they were rounding up workers at gun-point) and obviously capable of doing the job (what job was that? Taking out the garbage? Putting the manual and CD in it's sleeve?) otherwise they wouldn't have been hired.

I would applaud Apple for standing up for what they believe in, but I fear that it's more to appease the ignorant, myopic American public and their America-centric world-view than any real conviction on the subject. And I feel bad for the young adults who were fortunate to land an excellent, high-paying job (for that part of the world) who will now be unemployed.

I know you grew up in a "3rd-world country" but did you bother learning enough American history before commenting on our world view to know we had child labor in this country and abolished it because it was a horrible thing?

I have news for you. It's not that long ago that our countries had much the same system. Our ancestors fought long and hard to allow children to be educated rather than forced into working in factories to support their familes. The huge advances in our way of life in the last 150 years show that it was worth doing. Let's hope the leaders of your former country can be persuaded of that too.

*shrug* my wife is from Cambodia, she had 8 hour job at 14 selling cigarettes, umbrellas and fruit juice in restaurants. Eighth grade education normal for fortunate women there. For that matter, even my grandfather in USA had eighth grade education and went to work after that, normal at the time in part of country where he lived. How about we quit ramming our stupid culture down every other culture's throat?

This is not about "culture" but about the rights of mankind. It's not that they have to go to school, it's that they have a choice. How about you ask your wife if she would have preferred the chance at education over working at crappy jobs?We have the advantage in the "developed" world of not forcing our kids to work 12 hours a day in manual labour positions. We arrived at this advantage in part through exploitation of workers in other countries. Do you not think we have a moral obligation to try and correc

anwer is she was so happy as teen to be making more money than her mother who sold groceries at street market. she had plenty of food to eat for the first time in her life and good clothes and could go to dentist. For more than eight years prior, hungry, bad clothes, sore teeth and other problems. "job better than school", she says.

If my 15 yr old wants some spending cash you bet they can get their butt out on a paper route or babysitting or neighborhood yard work. I have no problem with "child labor" as a concept, it's a great idea on multiple fronts, teaching responsibility, the value of money, the benefits of being employed, etc.

The problem is it's so incredibly easy for big business to abuse, that it has to be outlawed for the most part. The idea is good, the practice is bad. Things like paper routes and babysitting tend to be self-limiting (due to the narrow window of time per day you can actually do them) so they're not really abusable. Manufacturing plants that can run 24/7 naturally are where the problems crop up.

"We know why children labor -- because the rich aren't willing to pay enough for a man to feed his family under his own pay. So what are the alternatives?"

Or because dad's dead and mom's debilitated. Most countries have the teenagers help out in the fields even if they don't get work in the factories. In fact, most western countries did that not so long ago. I agree with the OP above that this is less black and white than we make it out to be. A 15 year old works in a factory because it helps feed his fa

We know why children labor -- because the rich aren't willing to pay enough for a man to feed his family under his own pay.

Or, alternatively, because the owners aren't able to pay enough. I mean, let's imagine you have three options: don't pay enough for one person to keep an entire family fed, fire everyone and close down the factory, or go bankrupt, fire everyone, and then close down the factory.

Which do you choose?

by pulling workers out of the labor pool, we are making the labor resource more scarce maki

It's amazing that the mainstream public can be this economically retarded

Hmm, I'll say. But I don't think we're talking about the same group of people...

but it isn't very surprising given that their education is controlled by the government

Tinfoil hat time, here we go!

the very entity that benefits from these sorts of regulations.

The government benefits every time a child doesn't work, every time a pill doesn't kill someone, every time a student becomes a doctor or a scientist, every time a factory recalls tons of e. coli tainted beef... Well, in a sense, that's actually true, in the US, since We The People *are* the government.

Individuals, including children, choose to work in "sweatshops"

Bullshit. No child "choses" to work in a sweatshop. They are forced to by their parents, or by circumstances, but in no way do they think, "boy, I sure wish I could work 15 hours a day and get 2 pee breaks!"

Simply outlawing free market in labor will not make schools, hospitals, and personal wealth rain from the sky!

No. "Socialism" does this. The free market has never, and will never, provide schools, hospitals and personal wealth to reach the masses. A truly free market school system would leave the poor uneducated. A truly free market health system would leave the poor sick.

As for child labor, no free market on the planet would *ever* eliminate it. The only way to eliminate child labor is to outlaw it outright. This is because if it's legal, some company is going to engage in it, and some children are going to be forced by their parents or by circumstances into it.

Free market economies are able to go from child labor and sweatshops to banks and skyscrapers in just a couple of generations, while the "well-intentioned" socialist cesspools remain poor except for the handouts of others (often too through government force).

No free market has ever left child labor behind. You *are* correct that free markets will lead to banks and skyscrapers, however. You are wrong that socialism leads to poor nations. What you are thinking of is communism.

The trick is to gain the benefits of capitalism (banks, skyscrapers, etc.) while avoiding its negatives (exclusion of poor people, child labor, etc.). The way to do that is with laws (outlawing certain practices) and socialism (free education and health care) *AND* capitalism (skyscrapers and banks).

I'm not convinced you've thought about this very hard. I won't hold it against you, because nobody, least of all government schools, will teach you this stuff.

Having an opinion different from yours is not a sign of not thinking something through.

Your simpleminded Ayn Randian view of Capitalism vs Socialism is fundamentally delusional. You say things like, "There is no idelogical difference between socialism and communism. Both words mean: the state is absolute, and any individual can and will be made to sacrifice for the "good" of others." and "Socialism will always suppress the best a man has to offer because he will be forced act [or not act] contrary to his own wishes."

Such thoughts are easily disproven. You have this idea of Socialism as being where the state will absolutely tell you everything you can ever do, and that's simply not true. You have the notion that Capitalism means you are free to do anything you are physically and mentally capable of. This is simply not true either.

Additionally, every society that has ever existed has had both capitalistic and socialistic aspects. Simply being able to barter your goods and services, or being able to whittle a piece of wood for your own enjoyment, is Capitalism, and having any sort of government whatsoever is Socialism.

The intelligent society would be one where the two forces are used to best serve the people.

Your simplistic view is a result of not being able to hold two diametrically opposed views at the same time. Everything is either all out black, or all out white, and grey is a failure.

Socialism is great. Capitalism is great. Pure Socialism or pure Capitalism are both evil, although if I had to pick one to be pure, I'd most definitely pick Capitalism (if I were rich) or Socialism (if I were poor). Fortunately, I'm not an imbecile, and I can choose both in varying measures for varying things.

Oh, and to address your notion that Socialism and Communism are the same thing, the difference is that in Communism, everything is done for the state. In Socialism, everything is down for the people. The formal definitions are that the state owns/controls the means of production (Communism) or the people own/control the means of production (Socialism).

In Capitalism, those with capital own/control the means of production, but looking a it from the opposite direction, everything done is done for those with capital. If you don't have capital, Capitalism sucks.

You rail against public schools, but I can promise you one thing. In a purely Capitalistic society, education would be much worse unless you were rich. It's only by Socialism that everyone in America has access to school, and is able to, if they can, learn.

I don't know where you live, but where I grew up, 14 and 15 year olds were not hired by McDonalds.. Maybe it was just my states weird laws about not letting kids work near stoves, grills, vats of boiling oil, etc... However, I did work at one when I was 16..

In Penna, I worked at a McDonald's clone at age 15. 20 hours per week, max, I had to be OUT OF THE STORE before 11:00 PM, no grill work, but I did drop fries into the deep fryer. Child labor is legal here, but it's strictly regulated. Oh yeah, as I recall, I had to take some form to school to be signed.

I eventually quit that job, because I made more money at age 14 mowing lawns. In today's world, a 14 year old kid mowing lawns would probably call some guy name "Juan" his boss.

I don't think apple would have a problem with documented 16-year-olds working 2-8 hours a week while they were doing well at school. This has to do with kids working full time or more, particularly if under terrible working conditions. In terms of safe disposal, it has other implications with terrible health effects for certain destitute communities. (Google it.)

Hmm, I recall I was voluntarily working from as young as 13, and in fact I've worked basically every year since then. I just wanted to, it just seemed like the natural thing to do, as I've always loved making money. Gee, it never even occurred to me that I'd stumbled into being a 'victim' of child labor. I'm glad nobody "saved" me; the money I earned helped contribute to my cost of living while studying at university.

When I was growing up, it was not unusual for 15 year old kids to work at places, even in a warehouse (but not in a factory). But they were only able to work for a limited number of hours per week, the job had to be relatively safe and they needed permission from their school to work at a job. Generally schools were allowed to choose the criteria, such as grades or behavior to allow a student to work, while still giving a principal the ability to make exceptions for students who needed to bring money home t

That is, does one expect them to actually follow the rules? No. The ASCC is a whitewash given that it has no real ability to exact meaningful punishments.

Those are about 133,000 jobs on the wrong side of the US and Western Europe - where they might actually respect the law for once.

Apple has threatened to terminate its business relationship with these companies. If the companies fail to satisfy Apple, and Apple makes good on its threat, I'd call that a meaningful punishment.

If Apple stop doing business with a company that won't ensure a safe working environment for its employees, will the root of the problem get fixed? No, of course not, not right away. Apple will switch to another company, and the first company will have one less (rather large) customer. But they'll be able to find other customers, perhaps who are less scrupulous, and the employees will still have unsafe working conditions.

Or maybe, they won't be able to find other customers. Or the other customers they find, will have similar policies in place. Maybe the owners of the company will realize that if they want to continue to attract Western business, they need to make some changes - not due to respect for their employees, but because they need to pass these inspections in order to keep their customers happy.

That is, does one expect them to actually follow the rules? No. The ASCC is a whitewash given that it has no real ability to exact meaningful punishments.

Those are about 133,000 jobs on the wrong side of the US and Western Europe - where they might actually respect the law for once.

Assuming that Apple is a major client and significant source of income for these companies, then they do have real clout. Money clearly is a motivating tool for these people since that's the main benefit of child labor in the first place.

In these countries, many families struggle to put food on the table. By allowing their children who are able to work go to work in the factories, these families are better able to care for each other.

These are dangerous smelting factories or weapons manufacturing plants. They are electronics assembly lines. Lines which could essentially be replaced by robotics except that humans are cheaper. No kid is in danger of having his arm sliced off.

Enforcing Western-style regulations in Western countries makes sense, but in poor countries, having an extra set of hands working besides mom and dad is a real boon.

I can't believe I'm reading about Apple, of all companies, enforcing regulations like these overseas. It's more White Man's Burden than Protect The Children. But really, when you think about it, those two concepts are essentially the same, and it reeks of condescension.

That's a violation of an employment law, but it's not an egregious child slavery operation. 15 year olds working when the minimum employment age is 16 is very different from putting 8 year olds in effective slavery in factories. I think that was the GP poster's point.

Not supporting such government-business relationships is not condescending at all. In a way, it is doing them a favor by providing the right incentives to end it by cutting outside support.

They aren't going to use robotics if those extra set of hands keeps them from political pursuits. That is, political pursuits that bring an already unstable country to a ill-timed(for them, well-timed for the US) regime collapse.

> I can't believe I'm reading about Apple, of all companies, enforcing regulations like these overseas.

Really? Every time there's even a hint that Apple's subcontractors are hiring underage workers, or not paying them enough, or have dangerous conditions I see a dozen articles about how soul-suckingly evil Apple must be to allow this to go on (behind their back). Of course they're going to enforce the regulations...

I'm inclined to agree though. Addressing the issue of child labor in poor countries by fir

These conditions are enforced to maximise profit. When citizens of countries working under conditions like these seek redress there is an inevitable violent corporate sponsored government led retaliation against those seeking better conditions. If after extended period of revolution violence better conditions become available, corporation simply shift t the next country to exploit their population.

Trade should not occur upon a basis of exploitation, you are importing those working conditions along with those products, don't think so, then why are corporations and their political puppets continually saying that first world workforces has to compete, not once but over and over again. Are you ready to compete, no sick pay, no holiday pay, 50 cents an hour and, unsafe work conditions as normal practice including toxic chemicals.

It is disgusting to think anyone deems it appropriate to sponsor conditions on workers in other countries that they themselves would not accept. It reeks of greed and lies to assume that somehow poor people in other countries are born to work in poverty, they are bred to be mindless factory drones from birth, cheaper than robots.

Yet look around you, at your fellow migrants, people who escpaed from those conditions who managed to gain a better life, according to you, they couldn't possibly exist because they are happy to be factory slaves so why would they leave.

For countries to grow, they must each have an Industrial Revolution where they compete with the tools available. That means low wages and often child labor. The alternative is to lose, not to bypass the process and leap straight to a modern world with union benefits in a socialist utopia.

In these countries, many families struggle to put food on the table. By allowing their children who are able to work go to work in the factories, these families are better able to care for each other.

These are dangerous smelting factories or weapons manufacturing plants. They are electronics assembly lines. Lines which could essentially be replaced by robotics except that humans are cheaper. No kid is in danger of having his arm sliced off.

Enforcing Western-style regulations in Western countries makes sense, but in poor countries, having an extra set of hands working besides mom and dad is a real boon.

I can't believe I'm reading about Apple, of all companies, enforcing regulations like these overseas. It's more White Man's Burden than Protect The Children. But really, when you think about it, those two concepts are essentially the same, and it reeks of condescension.

American child labor laws were passed in the 30s, a time when the US economy more closely resembled that of today's developing countries. I think that children are especially vulnerable in places where poverty is prevalent because parents are more likely to neglect their children and often come to the wrong conclusion that trading their children's education for a job is in the child's best interest.

Education is the only way to break the poverty cycle and because impoverished parents may (understandibly) be

Different cultures have different ages where they need to become self-sufficient, or become responsible to help out with the family income. This whole 18 or 21 year old "western" ideal of adulthood is destructive to our own development in many ways, and should not be forced onto other countries with drastically different ways that the people grow up.

Your tirade would carry more weight if the country in question did not set a minimum work age at 16. Basically, the company was breaking the law. Your 18-21 straw man is not applicable in this argument.

If they want western ethics then get suppliers in countries that have laws and in general follow those rules.
Unless they are incompetent, they expect them to break Apples rules and are OK with this since they will also supply them with cheap labor.

Whenever I hear underage employment I always wonder is it really all that bad?
In countries that practice it they have children starving on the streets, so no matter how bad the conditions are relative to how we would want the conditions to be I am sure the children would rather work for cents a day then to starve to death on the streets.
Now I am sure in many cases it is doing the children a favor to stop underage employment, but I always wonder how many children have starved to death because of Western ethics.

The age wouldn't be an issue if critics didn't end up dying, and those who worked there didn't resemble the output end of a meat grinder. That's not condescending at all to ask that critics be allowed to live, and those whom work there have some actual choice in the matter.

These are my workers. They should be on my train. They're skilled ipod workers. They're essential. Essential girls. Their fingers polish the insides of ipod metal casings. How else am I to polish the inside of a 8GB ipod casing? You tell me. You tell me!

"In general," Apple said in the report, "annual audits of final assembly manufacturers show continued performance improvements and better working conditions."

Or translated into English, "it used to be we didn't care, but now we have announced once a year inspections, we find that each time they get better at hiding violations from us".

I wonder what the Toyota scandal will do with all of this however. They are paying the price for random outsourcing to safe some bucks and it is costing them a fortune and decades of good will as the most reliable cheap car maker are shot to hell. (And yes I am aware that the problems occurred in the US, but that is a low wage country compared to Japan.)

When you outsource everything, what is left of your company? And once you put in place all those checks to make sure people half way across the world are working as you want them, how much have you actually saved?

Apple revealed the sweatshop conditions inside the factories it uses. The child workers were found in a facility with high vaulted ceilings, elegantly crafted marble work benches and a classical quartet playing in the background in a corner of the floor. Young geniuses sat in their Aerons and levitated components into place with the powers of the mind, burning the famed Apple logo into the back of the assembled device with but a glance of terrifying but controlled power. Some lunches, with only an hour's break, would involve wines of less than ten years' vintage.

Competitors were outraged. "We are shocked, shocked to hear of Apple's ruthless exploitation of the chilll-drennn," said Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. "But then, what do you expect when they actually ask their suppliers about this stuff. Don't ask, don't tell! That's what made the 360 great!"

Apple's Chinese manufacturing facilities were the site of controversy last year when one young worker at Foxconn, who had teleported an iPhone home overnight, was found to have committed suicide by leaping from the top of the building, first breaking his own neck, and tearing out all his own fingernails on the way down. He was found with Apple logos carved into his back, obviously also self-inflicted. "A tragedy," said the report.

I love cracking jokes about children being forced to make our crap and defending sweatshop labour as much as the next guy, but some of the comments on this story have my stomach turning. If the choice is between having families out of work and having them work for little money, then fine; run the factories. But that is a very selective framing of this issue and is utterly uninformative. The developed world (not "the West", which is a meaningless term) and our corporations interact with the third world in an extremely complex way which the above scenario completely oversimplifies.

Between extremes of us taking advantage of cheap labour, and us setting the scene for that cheap labour to exist, we are far closer to the latter option. See the progress of the IMF and the World Bank for examples.

I know the rebuttal: Well, how would you feel about paying 10x as much for your electronics !11!!1 But even if costs would escalate that high - and they wouldn't because employing our own workers instead would have loads of offsetting, positive effects for our economies and increasing salaries for impoverished workers by a factor of 10 only increases total costs by a portion of that - I'm more comfortable with that than saying that some people's lives are essentially worthless because of where they're born. And I suspect that if consumers were forced to really consider how their dollars 'supported' poor economies, maybe if all stores had to show in-store videos of their factories chugging along, then paying a little more for a higher quality product and higher quality lives wouldn't seem so bad.

"they condemned the violations and threatened to terminate their business with facilities that did not change their ways.

In other words, no change at all. Just enough press coverage and feigned outrage to cover themselves and shift the blame if required to do so at a later date. But nobody got fired. Nor did any contract get canceled.

15 year old "kids" working is child labour?
I also worked in the school holidays at that age.
Anyone even considered that they may already have finished school?
Depending on the school-system (entering at age 5 and having 8-9 years of school) they may well be lucky to get a job straight after school.

except you know, they dont charge any more than anyone else. There IS NO APPLE TAX anymore. Stop comparing POS computers to a standard Apple configuration and actually you know configure a Dell to match a Apple. You WILL be surprised.

except you know, they dont charge any more than anyone else. There IS NO APPLE TAX anymore. Stop comparing POS computers to a standard Apple configuration and actually you know configure a Dell to match a Apple. You WILL be surprised.

And you *still* won't get the Dell to match the Mac in terms of screen quality, battery life, thinness, sturdiness, etc.

But I guess those things are simply the "aesthetics" and "form over function" that people keep trying to pretend are unimportant or something...

Outside the US this is a different matter. I can get something pretty much equivalent to the 17" macbook Pro from dell (the dell will have a better screen RGBLED) for about half the price of the macbook, as Apple plays funny games with the exchange rate..

They did cut off a factory for falsifying records to cover up violations. Also, when was the last time ANY company did this? I guarantee you that a great deal of products in your home were made by sweatshops, child labor, indentured workers, etc. What are all these other companies doing about it?

I don't care what the reasons are. I'm glad that SOMEONE is doing something and that hopefully this will galvanize other companies into doing the same.

Do you also realize that Dick Durbin is all over them about this right now, hence the audit?

Them, and 29 other high profile companies.

It has been almost 4 years since they started this 'code of conduct' BS.

Wait, I thought you said they just started this right now in response to Durbin?

Yet the violations continue..... think about that for a minute.

Of course they do. It's China. But they don't continue with Apple's consent. It's like saying, "there are laws against murder, yet murders still continue... think about that for a minute."

They audit, it gets Durbin off of them.. he is happy.

Again, they've been at this for four years. It's very clever of them to have allocated precious resources to their time machine to go back to 2006 and start this process, all to appease one Senator.

Business goes on as usual.... what has Apple actually DONE here but make some baseless threats, the same ones they made back in 2006.

You're absolutely correct. A Code of Conduct is an unassailable mechanism that instantly forces all who are subject to it into compliance. It's truly magical that way.

Here's the thing. This Code of Conduct applies to other companies. Sure they may agree to it, but that doesn't mean they are going to follow it. That's why Apple audits them, and takes action as necessary. But don't forget, this are independent third parties, who operate in a different nation with a different culture than Apple's, and are not going to change their standard practices just on someone else's say so. It's going to have to harm them financially (or legally, but in China, we can pretty much ignore that aspect regarding the current topic). Apple can only do so much, and what they *can* do, they are doing *something*, which is far more than can be said for their competitors.

It's ironic that Apple is being taken to task for doing the right thing and looking into the human rights practices of their suppliers, instead of turning a blind eye like everyone else. It's like blaming a doctor for finding cancer, because he actually performs the tests, and giving the doctors who don't a pass...

I'll bet the same people so eager to condemn Apple for actually trying to live up to its responsibilities on a voluntary basis would also decry a government regulation that attempted to regulate this on a less-than voluntary way. And anybody want to bet that the low-cost manufacturers would be the worse offenders? The race to the bottom, indeed.
The truth is, Apple does all right in any neutral ranking. Could be better, but they've made a lot of progress.
http://www.rankabrand.com/ [rankabrand.com]

[quote]During most of our audits, suppliers stated that Apple was the only company that had ever audited their facility for supplier responsibility.[/quote]

IOW, other companies don't give a shit about abusive labor practices from their suppliers. They might pay lip service but no one's really doing any audits to actually check. Apple, OTOH, is going out there and digging around to make sure their suppliers are in compliance with labor and environmental standards.

New low? This is leadership in defining a more responsible way to do business.

IOW, other companies don't give a shit about abusive labor practices from their suppliers. They might pay lip service but no one's really doing any audits to actually check. Apple, OTOH, is going out there and digging around to make sure their suppliers are in compliance with labor and environmental standards.

New low? This is leadership in defining a more responsible way to do business.

See, and that's the new low - that's just Apple marketing to make the others look bad.

Ah, I see. Apple ignores abusive labor, they're horrible. Apple actually does something about abusive labor, and it's just for PR to shame other companies. Got it. They can't do anything right no matter what because you said so.

Yet again Apple is heralded on Slashdot for "inventing" something the rest of the business has been doing for years.

Please provide a citation.

See EICC [eicc.info] or Dell's [dell.com] involvement in it which started in 2004.

What Apple has done differently that I see, is they actually openly published the results of their audits so others can check and so the public can see how long they keep doing business with companies that violate their code of conduct. Clearly Dell and every other company has a published code of conduct created by their PR department. So far I haven't yet found any other company that has actually published the results of an audit yet, nor what companies they have stopped doing business with. Mostly I just see weasel words like about making partners progress towards less human rights violations, which does not even make it clear if they refuse to do business with companies that make no progress and don't stop these abuses, if said companies even know about it.

I'm not even excusing Apple here. I'm just saying they took one small step towards transparency and real accountability in the industry and that deserves our praise. I'll be just as loud decrying them if in two years Apple hasn't checked back, hasn't stopped doing business with these companies, and it is discovered the unfair practices have not been stopped.

Ummm, seriously? Assuming the average fully laden cost of a US worker is $50,000 a year, you are talking about $6-$7 billion dollars in direct labor costs here in the US. But now your factories need to be built here in the US, you need US land, factory equipment and machines sourced in the US (these can be 3-4 times more expensive than the equivalent sourced in China), you raw materials have to be sourced here, and you need to maintain larger inventories of components that are still only made in Asia. I would imagine that this would add at least $12-15 billion dollars in total cost to Apple's business, perhaps even more (direct labor costs usually are less than half the cost difference between manufacturing in the US and manufacturing in Asia). Their EBITDA is currently around $14B, and net income is about $9B. You have now taken a highly profitable company and made it into another large American manufacturing company selling lots of product but hemorrhaging *billions* of dollars a year. Just like our auto industry.

Anyway, just pointing out how the economics work. There's a reason relatively little manufacturing is done in the US anymore, except for highly taxed and protected industries like defense or aerospace, high end or luxury niches, and products where the value/volume ratio makes it unprofitable to manufacture abroad and ship to the US.

There's a reason relatively little manufacturing is done in the US anymore,

The US, with a third of China's population, still does more manufacturing than China. US manufacturing output is still over twice that of China. US manufacturing employment, though, continues to drop [blogspot.com]. Manufacturing automation works very well today.

Read my post again, and you'll see I mentioned what sort of manufacturing *does* occur in the US. I do have some experience with manufacturing for big box retailers in the US, and know what companies and segments still make stuff here in the US. Of all the consumer goods out there, it's basically niches. Most mass market retailers buy stuff in Asia and don't even want to talk to you if you make stuff in the US anymore. Buyers want to meet with their suppliers in China. Hell, if you want to buy plastic

No, I was talking about the *average*, *fully laden* cost of your staff in a manufacturing operation. I'm assuming an average salary of something like $35k. By the time you finish paying payroll taxes, health insurance, benefits, and so on, you are easily at $50k. The standard practice is to add about 50% to the base salary to account for these other costs when doing budgeting, probably slightly more now that health insurance costs have gone up so much.

So Apple is to give a new code of conduct for it's suppliers, I too have a code of conduct, "Don't buy Apple products." I think mine trumps Apple's code of conduct, whatever their PR department says.

So you buy your computer hardware from companies that do not have an enforced code of conduct for labor overseas thereby contributing to horrible human rights abuses? Seriously, I want to know who you buy hardware from and why you think that is less evil.

It's the standard rule for Apple. If they do something, or if there's even a mere rumour about a new product, it gets reported wildly by the media, with tonnes of hype and sensationalism, even if there have been other actual products doing the same for years beforehand.

You can't have it both ways, and go crying when it backfires. Let's wait for the special pleading now - "It doesn't matter that Apple weren't the first to employ child slaves, the point is that they were the ones to popularise it"...

READ. i said they got CAUGHT 3 years ago.So what if they admitted it this time..... what are they going to do about it?They released this same code of conduct 3 years ago and they are STILL doing it...

I am biased because these bastards repeat the same nonsense over and over.. 'we did something... we did something...'Yet it continues.The audit was done to keep Dick Durbin off their asses, he is sniffing pretty close.